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Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Power Plant Coming to Printers Row Area?

We received two emails yesterday from concerned residents questioning recent letters they received from Midwest Generation:

Hi Sloopin,I came home today to a letter from Midwest Energy stating they are building a power plant at Harrison and Wells. See attached copy of the letter. Any information on this? I certainly don't recall a public hearing for anything on that land other than a parking lot to the north of River City.Thanks!!

Here is the second, which talks about a drawing with two smoke stacks:

I live at Financial and Polk and received a very disturbing (and poorly written) letter today - that Edison International's Midwest Generation (a subsidiary) has bought the vacant lot at the corner of Wells and Harrison - and they are breaking ground on a new generation station - coal powered - with 2 smoke stacks (according to the drawing). Now, we get letters all the time when developers decide they want to do add a parking lot, or change from 2 condo towers to 1 - but we get nothing about a power generator (like the one in Pilsen) until it's a done deal?? Had you guys heard about this? Have other sloopers gotten the same letter? And is there anything we can do about it??

It appears that these letters are just coming out now, but this is new news to us (and we didn't receive the letters presumably because we don't live that close to the site).

Anyone else get the letter or have any background on this new power plant that's coming to the neighborhood?

A Google search on this shows that this site should have information:http://mwg.borrowednostalgia.com/

However, the site is down.

A Google cached version of the site shows this information:http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:YJlv2hZT9wIJ:mwg.borrowednostalgia.com/+Midwest+Generation+power+plant+harrison+and+wells&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

It does confirm what the letters state. Odd that the main site is down.

The Twitter account @MidwestGen says the following: We're excited to be back in action in the beautiful South Loop!

At the very least the could have moved this South of Roosevelt where it would be not in the center of the city! I can only imagine how much of an eyesore this will be it will look and smell just like Gary Indiana.

There is plenty of open land just south of Roosevelt where it could be built. It would still have the proximity to the Loop, but not directly neighboring residential buildings. The fact that it is so close to a small residential block of Printers Row is killer for our real estate values and health.

Tom - Chicago definitely needs jobs, but not on the backs of the homeowners who are already reeling from falling home prices. I live in the neighborhood and bought my place a little over 4 years ago. I didn't even buy a place that was completely rehabbed, and the value of my condo is already $40k less than what I paid. If this "generation station" happens - it is only going to cause all home prices to fall further. So, you'll end up with more foreclosed units, because no one will buy when a power plant is going in and banks will not allow people to refinance a value that low. So, which is better? Jobs or people being forced to leave their homes/ruin their credit? The 2 don’t have to be mutually exclusive – but, to think that the jobs this plant will add will only be “good” for the city of Chicago, is short-sighted.

mwg.borrowednostalgia.com is a sub domain of www.borrowednostalgia.com. This is ABSOLUTELY a hoax, and I can assure you the owners of the domain are behind this. Visit their site and you'll notice their design skills are very consistent...from print to web. Hahaha.

Tom, We live in Chicago for the Charm of the city. If we wanted smoke stacks and breath low-quality air we would all move to gary. Yes we need the jobs, but why would it have to be in Printer's Row? Put it two miles south of that and I would be much happier about it.

It is a hoax, as anyone can see by looking at the poorly designed "brochure" with its sentence fragments. There's a second flyer from the nonexistent "Chicago Department of Public Health." An attached letter is from a made-up law firm apparently named for characters in "Sex and the City."

It's not yet clear whether it's simply performance art by Columbia College students or an attempt by folks in Pilsen to raise awareness in other neighborhoods of their fight regarding the Fisk and Crawford generating stations.

Below is a statement on behalf of my client, Midwest Generation, regarding the hoax:

A letter and pamphlet circulated in recent days to residents of the South Loop and a press release issued today claiming to be from Midwest Generation to announce construction of a power plant in the city are fake.

The materials also refer to a fake Midwest Generation website and twitter account, and have photos and names of supposed Midwest Generation employees which are also fake. Those behind this hoax also misappropriated Midwest Generation's letterhead and logo.

None of these materials came from Midwest Generation, which owns six power plants and a wind farm in the state of Illinois. Midwest Generation is not building a new plant in the city of Chicago.

There also was a protest against the fake plant on April 27 near the intersection of Harrison and Wells. It is unclear if the "protesters" were the perpetrators of the fraud or were duped by it.

I work for Com-Ed and I can confirm this rumor to be true. Com-Ed has had concerns for years that the grid in the South Loop has been strained by the massive amount of electricity being consumed by the countless towers full of luxury condos that have been built. They have been in talks to get this built for some time now and it looks like its finally moving forwards.

Also, I can confirm that the river will be used to barge in huge amounts of coal that will be stored in the lot extending from Roosevelt north along the river. A conveyor belt will be built from there to the plant to supply it.

Don't believe what Fioretti is saying, from what I've heard he is in on it. Check his campaign contributions, he gets a lot of money from infrastructure/energy related interests.